5 Years, But It Felt Like the First Time

5 Years, But It Felt Like the First Time

The last Anvil workout was March 4, 2020, Point Break’s VQ 40th birthday celebration.  The next week, March 11th we all converged at Death Valley for that sendoff.  But after that things went pretty dark pretty quick.  With my 40th on April 11th, I distinctly remember PB telling me I was just a month away and up next for the 40th B-day Q.  Man, how much changed during that month as COVID-19 became more widespread and AOs were shut down..  SYITG went to SYITZ, and while the zoom workouts were good, nothing close to the real thing.  It was good to take this first step of being back at Anvil for a socially distanced workout. My first F3 workout was a one-off that was done at my church sometime back in 2013 time frame before an upcoming men’s retreat.  But I didn’t start coming out to F3 until 5/6/15, my first day at Anvil.  I read some of those backblasts from that time period and remember the one from 5/13/15 (exactly 5 years ago today) quite well.  Maybe we should reenact that one.  Let’s see, Lobsta Roll led it, burpee ladder going up from 1 to 15 and then back down to 11, with 25 of another exercise in between.  Then a burpee/air press Jack Webb for a daily total of 225 burpees.  The audible was called, we would not be doing that again. Weather was pretty perfect, mid 50s, 5 other guys made the count 6 and were disclaimed, although it probably should have been an hour long in our current environment, but we were off. COP Mosey around the parking lot beside 51 and then headed over to the turf for COP. IW x 15 IC LSS x 15 IC Mountain Climber x 15 IC Alternating Shoulder Taps x 15 IC Merkin x 10 IC The Thang: Mosey to the traffic circle at the end of the Avenue of Trees for good ole 5 fingered Starfish.  We would run out, perform exercises, and back to the middle with 20 merkins. 1 – Back to the turf for 3 rounds of 10 plankjacks, bear crawl the turf and 10 Carolina Dry Docks.  Back to middle for 20 merkins. 2 – Mosey to the fields for 3 rounds (which ended up being 4) of 10 American Hammer, run the hill and 10 LBCs.  Back to middle for 20 merkins. 3 – Mosey to the hot box for 3 rounds of 10 step ups, 10 dips and 10 derkins.  Back to middle for 20 merkins. 4 – Mosey to the rock pile for 3 rounds of 10 curls, 10 overhead press and 10 tricep extensions.  Back to middle for 20 merkins. 5 – Finished the starfish on North Face.  3 rounds of 10 jumpsquats, run the hill, 5 burpees at the top.  Back to middle for 20 merkins. Mary Flutter x 15 IC Rosalita x 15 IC Freddy Mercury x 15 IC Moleskin: Chatter was pretty good today, and the 1/3 refusenik held his ground well.  Although Puddin’ did tell me he did the bear crawls for me just because it was my 5 year anniversary, thanks?  Some great commentary on the Last Dance, football, golf, etc.  But really just great to be back together. 5 years of F3 go by pretty fast.  When I started F3, I was already in multiple men’s groups through church and being from Charlotte had a pretty good network.  But dropping our Y membership so I could play golf at Raintree I just needed someplace to workout.  Therefore, I feel like for the first few years didn’t really give F3 it’s due.  If I’m being honest I just needed the workouts and felt like I was pretty good everywhere else.  But after a while the people are what draw you in.  My wife, as I’m sure some of yours have as well, has been doing those enneagram personality studies and I’ve since learned sustaining that model for me just wasn’t going to be possible.  Whatever I do, I need to be in it, just not someone who shows up for 45 minutes a few mornings a week.  But man has that been a struggle with weekend activities with the kids, both sides of our family in town and other groups as well.  But I’m trying, and will continue to do better.  It’s an awesome group of guys and I love the camaraderie and accountability.  Keep doing what you are doing and we’ll bring a whole bunch of sad clowns up with us.  SYITG.